Lausatök

Lausatök is the most aggressive form of armed and unarmed glima, the name of the Scandinavian martial art used by the Vikings over 1,200 years ago. The word glíma in Old Norse means glimpse or flash, which describes the system's techniques.

Lausatök (lit. loose-grip or free-grip) is by far the most widespread form of glima practiced in Norway, Europe and North America, and there are regular competitions in this form of glima such as the Norwegian Glima Championship. In Lausatök loose-grip wrestling, the contestants may use the holds they wish, and it is practised both outdoors and indoors year-round in Scandinavia. This style was banned in Iceland for a period of about 100 years before being taken up again recently.

Lausatök, or Løse-tak in Norwegian, is quite aggressive and differs in many ways from the other styles of Viking wrestling. Lausatök comes in two forms: A version for self-defence/combat and a sport version for friendly competition. In both, all kinds of wrestling techniques are allowed, but in the friendly version they are still taught to be executed in a way so they won’t cause the opponent injury.

Glíma as a sport covers several types of Scandinavian folk wrestling: Lausatök, Hryggspenna, and Brokartök. Glima was the most widespread sport in the Viking Age, and was practiced by men and women of all ages. Wherever Vikings gathered, Glima was a big part of the entertainment. Glima was so important for Viking society that their most popular god, Thor, was also the Viking the god of wrestling.

It is possible that the origins of Glíma are Norwegian. Glíma is first mentioned in Viking poetry by the Norwegian court poet Bragi Boddason (790-850) and Kveldúlfr Bjálfason (820-878), also of Norwegian Heritage. The poetry is about the Norse god Thor and his journey to Utgards-Loki, where Elli defeats Thor in a wrestling match.

Glíma is also mentioned in Prose Edda the Icelandic collection of texts from 1220, and in the book Gylfaginning.

Glíma as a sport has also gone by the name of Scandinavian Wrestling and Viking Wrestling (Vikingbryting).

Níð

Old Norse: nīð; Old English: nīþ, nīð, was a term for a social stigma implying the loss of honor and the status of a villein. A person affected with the stigma is a nīðing (Old Norse: níðingr, Old English: nīðing, nīðgæst)

...
Wikipedia